iTunes Music Store to arrive in Denmark this October

Apple will unveil a Danish version of its iTunes online music store this October, the Copenhagen Times is reporting.

A few days prior to the iTunes launch, rival Miscrosoft is expected to debut its own music download site, MSN Music, in Denmark.

Representatives for Apple Computer told the publication that while they'reÂ*aware of Microsoft's plans, the brewing battle for online music fans in Denmark isn't intimidating to them.

"Our product is incredibly user-friendly, and our success on the online music market will be aided along by our music playback technology iPod," said Apple Denmark product director Henrik Ryle.

No further details on the launch were provided.

Earlier this year, Apple opened online music stores in UK, France and Germany. However, the company has yet to negotiate a deal that would allow them to deliver a variant of its iTunes Music Store to major markets such as Canada and Japan.

Comments

Wow I almost feel this news was written only to serve me. Its an honor Kasper

But Copenhagen Post? I could not live more central of Copenhagen and the name of that paper doesn´t ring a bell to me at all. And Apple Denmark is known to know less than a door stopper in CompUSA about whats around the corner.

This is too bizarre. Nobody is going to convince me that Denmark is a more important market for Apple than Canada.

What's taking so long? There are competing services up and running, so it can't be the labels or regulatory bodies. Is it the fact that P2P is legal? Is Apple just taking a stand?

It's hard to get a straight story out of Canada, especially since Apple isn't talking, but the fact that P2P has been ruled legal (because royalties are paid with a levy on media) might be one consideration. They can still compete with P2P, but they can't use the "bad karma" argument, and if Canada also taxes the iPod then they'll be paying royalties twice (which is, of course, exactly what the publishers want).

Also, remember that Apple is pushing one contract with liberal and uniform DRM to all parties, and they won't launch until they have a fairly complete catalog. Services that are content to offer smaller catalogs or inconsistent and more restrictive DRM can launch sooner. Also, native Canadian companies have a leg up over foreign companies like Apple in terms of support and encouragement from the government there.

I imagine the situation in Japan is similar: We won't see iTMS in Japan until Sony's had a chance to get their solution established; if iTMS is seen as too much of a threat, Japan might not see it for a long time, if ever.

Publishers do not like the idea of a dominant store that can dictate terms, especially since they already dictate more liberal (to the customers) terms than the labels are comfortable with.